The Last of Us: Independence
by DigitalSalute
Summary: This story starts off right as the game is ending. It explores both Joel and Ellie's feelings and insights on their situation. They'll experience the hardships of surviving in a world ravished by epidemic. This story will explore the coming years Joel and Ellie will have together... and the years they will spend apart. First fanfic! Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

The Last of Us: Independence

**(Authors Note): Okay so I'm just going to start off by saying this is my first fan fiction story, ever. I want to be a writer, specifically for video games. I thought that maybe this would be a good outlet to test my skills and grow as a writer. I am extremely open to suggestions and constructive criticism. For this story, I will not be making this purely for people who want a love story or something that is not The Last of Us. I will try as hard as I can to keep the characters as true to the game as I can. This story will be based on what I perceive as the story as soon as the game ends. There will likely be no time skip, no "two years later" kind of thing. This will be the kind of story that I would love to see Naughty Dog make again. A story that made me cry, laugh, yell in anger, and fear. Honestly, I would love if people accepted this and loved the story, but for all intents and purposes, this story is really for me. Like I said, I love The Last of Us and have played through the main campaign many times. No story has touched me in such a way as this. Naughty Dog truly made a masterpiece that will be my favorite game and story for years to come. So with that, let's begin.**

She stared at me. I couldn't determine her feelings at the moment. The way she looked at me broke my heart. She knew I was lying to her, I could tell, which made it that much harder not to just come out and say that I damned the human race because of selfish reasons. Over the past year I had grown to love Ellie as my own daughter. I had traveled across the entire country, fought hunters, runners, clickers, and bloaters to get her to the fireflies.

I took on this task as an obligation, at first, because of Tess. She and I had a complicated work relationship and I felt I owed it to her to carry this little girl across the country, to potentially save people from meeting the same fate as Tess. But as we continued on our "adventure," my reasoning became something of a far cry from what it originally was. I grew to really care about this little girl. Hell, I grew to love this girl as my own daughter. I didn't see her as replacing Sarah. No one could ever replace her. But Ellie brought something completely new into my life that had been absent since I lost Sarah. A reason to live. Something to fight for.

"Swear to me… Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true."

When she spoke those words to me, everything went quiet. The forest was no longer bustling with wildlife. The sound of the small waterfall faded into nothingness. She stared at me, waiting for my answer.

"… I swear."

She looked at me, obviously gathering her thoughts.

"Okay."

I knew she didn't believe me because she restrained herself from squeezing more information out of me. It was very unlike her. It was unsettling.

"Thank you, Joel."

My eyes widened slightly, "For what, Ellie?"

"For everything," she responded, and started walking past me down the hill to Tommy's. "Come on, Joel! It's past lunch and I'm starving!" I jogged up beside her and looked down at her. I was unsure if my lie would change how our relationship would remain and grow. She saw me looking and smiled up at me. That simple gesture, that tiny display of emotion let me know that she understood why I did what I did, at least a little bit. While she would have undoubtedly given her life for this shithole of a world, she would have done the same for me.

My thoughts drifted as we walked, getting closer and closer to Tommy's. I didn't regret anything I did for that little girl. The only thing I regret was not getting to her in time before she was forced to kill that animal she called David. It visibly left her emotionally scarred from that experience, and I wince every time I think about what could have happened if she hadn't grabbed that machete, or if I hadn't been close by. That experience changed her, and I hate myself for not getting to her sooner.

"Stop right there or I'll put a bullet right between your eyes!" yelled a young man, maybe only a few years older than Ellie, in one of the many guard towers surrounding the town.

"Listen son, I'm a friend of Tommy's. If you could tell him we've come back, I'd really appreciate it."

"I'm not doing shit! How do I know you're not a hunter or-"

"Will, put the gun down. He's a friend," spoke a familiar voice from behind the opening gates. "I was starting to think you'd never come back." He patted me on the shoulder. "You look like you've gained a few years in the last few months."

I chuckled, "Yeah, well, there's a reason for that, little brother. A topic of conversation for another time, I'm afraid. He looked at me for a moment and then turned to greet Ellie. They did their little exchange with Tommy making a joke and Ellie coming back with a little jab. "You still got room for us in this town of yours?" I asked.

"I think we can find a hole for you to crawl in."

**Okay so I know it wasn't very long but I just kind of wanted to set up the theme, I guess, for this story. I will dive into more emotional waters in the next chapter and address some of the reasons why Joel did what he did to save Ellie. Again, I appreciate any constructive criticisms anyone might have for me. I want this to be a gripping story so readers input is appreciated. I'll have another, longer chapter up in about two days most likely so stay tuned!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Shortly after Ellie and I arrived at Tommy's, we were greeted by a few familiar faces. A few of the men who were working on getting the power plant up and running the last time we visited were walking the streets, headed to their lookout duties. There were several children a few years younger than Ellie running around playing tag, nowhere near to the fences though. Ever since Tommy's people got the electricity going again, the fences have been pulsing with it. Many signs were erected to keep the children away because the fence was meant to kill the infected, not scare them.

We met up with Maria about ten minutes after our arrival. She hugged Ellie and nodded towards me with a grin on her face. As we were headed to wherever Tommy was taking us, I took in more of our surroundings. They had really cleaned the place up. Trash wasn't lying everywhere, green overgrowth had been cut and piled behind a few of the houses, and blood stains from previous skirmishes had been simply painted over so the children wouldn't ask about them. It was overall a nice change from the dirty environment I had gotten used to over the years. It brought back memories of the ranch Tommy and I tracked Ellie to. It seemed almost untouched by time, save a few boarded up windows and broken asphalt.

Tommy was also unusually jovial. Of course, we hadn't seen each other in years, and the last time we did, we nearly got in a fight, so it was nice to see my little brother enjoying life, no matter how shitty it was. Tommy and Maria were talking our ears off about how much progress they had made in the months since we had been gone, and honestly, I just wanted to lie down and get some rest. The stress from the last few days had taken its toll on me, Ellie too.

"Well, brother, here ya go. The place is yours. I know you like your privacy so the only neighbors you've got right now are Maria and me," Tommy spoke with our shared southern accent. I smiled and hugged him.

"Thanks, little brother. You have no idea what this means to us."

"Yea, especially me. I'm tired of sleeping on the ground and having to hear this old geezer sucking air all night," Ellie complained. We all laughed. It was moments like this that made me glad I didn't let that firefly walk me out of that hospital. I don't know what I would've done without Ellie.

"Well, guys, the sun's right over our heads right now so it's probably a little after noon. Everyone meets for supper in the basement of the power plant when the sun touches the horizon," Tommy said, talking to Ellie and I.

"Awesome! I'm already looking forward to it!" I was as excited as Ellie to have the opportunity to eat with good people for once, but I was looking forward more to sleep than food at the moment. Tommy and Maria said their goodbyes and headed toward their home a couple of houses down. I looked at Ellie, gave her a "C'mon, kiddo," and headed inside. It was a small house with two bedrooms. The living room had a couch and a loveseat, both next to the window overlooking the street. I dropped my backpack on the floor and fell onto the couch. Like I told Ellie in the forest, I was starting to feel my age. Ellie found her place on the loveseat and soon enough we were both in a dead slumber.

The basement of the power plant was a little larger and more put together than I thought. I expected it to be like a cold dungeon with stone walls, but instead it had about 8 long tables put together to make one long table. To get our food we had to stand in line and scoop the food from old pots and pans. The whole set up reminded me of when the outbreak hit and I had to stay in a shelter. They would line us up and feed us this way, but the difference between Tommy's and a shelter was that Tommy's was quickly beginning to feel like a home.

Back in Boston, people would stand for hours in the cold, heat, and rain to get what little food they could with ration cards and while Tommy's didn't have an abundance of food, everyone got the chance to eat. The food was delicious and the company was comforting. I had been used to isolating myself from the outside, but I could foresee that I would be unable to continue that twenty year long tradition I practiced, even if I wanted to.

Ellie and I sat next to Tommy and Maria, and during supper we were introduced to the town. We were pretty well received by everyone, considering that Ellie had stolen a horse and had gotten another one killed. After we ate the people approached us, shook our hands and made small talk. All of this was starting to feel like the old world, and it was nice. After a while the townspeople started heading to their homes to get ready for the next day. Ellie and I walked over to Maria and Tommy.

"Hey, baby brother. I was wondering if we could have a little chat."

"Sure, Joel. Maria, honey, would you mind taking Ellie home?" Tommy asked. "Me and the old man over here are gonna do a little catching up."

"Sure, sweetie. C'mon, Ellie," Maria said. Ellie looked at me for a moment then nodded and left with Maria. I looked at the door they exited through long after they left.

"What happened, Joel?" Tommy asked. I looked at the ground. My throat was starting to get dry and I was beginning to sweat.

"I killed 'em, Tommy," I confessed.

"What?"

"I killed them. The fireflies. I killed the soldiers, the doctors… I killed Marlene." I looked Tommy in the eyes and saw confusion.

"Why? What happened, Joel?" I told Tommy everything. Every single detail of what happened. From the time we arrived at the God forsaken hospital, to shooting that first soldier, to killing the rest, and then Marlene. I told him about how I lied to Ellie and how it's the only thing that I regret. I told him that I didn't regret killing the fireflies to save Ellie, and that if I had to do it again I would.

Tommy just watched me while I told him what happened. When I finished, he looked at the ground, sighed, and looked back at me.

"Listen, Joel. I was smart enough to figure out that you did something pretty drastic to get Ellie back here without having bullet holes in either of you. I was with the fireflies a long time, I know how they work and I know how the infection operates and spreads. I knew the only way to get a cure would be to remove it from the brain but I didn't know they would have to kill her. Honestly, I would have done the same thing for you, Maria, and Ellie. While I don't know her that well yet, I know that you care about her and that'd be all the reasonin' I'd need, big brother. And if anymore fireflies ever found you, you can bet that we'd be right by your side, everyone'd be," he said with a smile.

"That means a lot, Tommy. I also appreciate you takin' us in like you have. Hell, I'm in your debt." He laughed.

"Don't mention it. You can pay off that debt by goin' huntin' with me and Will tomorrow. Oh, and forgive him for the whole 'bullet between your eyes' thing. He was just doing his job."

"It's fine, and I'd be glad to join you two."

When Tommy and I said goodnight, I was expecting to walk into the house and see Sarah sleeping on the couch. I opened the door and instead saw a little red-haired girl in Sarah's place. I was then brought back to reality, but I wasn't sad like I thought I'd be. Ellie became my daughter, and I cared deeply for her. She gave me a reason to keep on living.

I closed the front door and turned to see Ellie waking up.

"Hey, Joel. You guys were gone for a while. What did you talk about?"

"We were just catching up. Talking about the stuff that happened since we left last fall."

"Well by the looks of things, they've gotten a lot of shit done," she said with her potty mouth that I'd gotten used to. "I mean, they've been to nearby towns that haven't been touched since the outbreak happened so they were about get tons of food and supplies."

"That reminds me, Ellie, I'm gonna go huntin' with Tommy and Will tomorrow morning. We should be back a few hours before supper. In the mean time, Maria is going to show you around the town and get you acquainted with the lookout guards 'cause you're gonna be playing border patrol."

"Awesome! I'm so glad you guys didn't stick me with some job like canned food counter or the cleaning lady."

We woke up early that morning to a knock on the door. My instinct and old habits had me rushing to my pistol, but when I remembered I was supposed to go hunting with Tommy, I put the gun back in my bag.

"Rise and shine big brother!" Tommy yelled. "It's time to go get us some meat!"

"Jesus, boy, keep it down. Can't you see I just woke up?"

"Oh don't be grumpy, Joel, huntin' is always fun around these parts. There's an abundance of wild game and the infected hardly ever show up around here 'cause we're so deep in the wilderness."

"Yeah I hear you. Just gimme' a second to get my gear and then we'll head out."

I woke up Ellie and told her to meet Maria at her house to eat breakfast and get ready for work. Tommy led me out of the house and towards the gates Ellie and I entered through when got here. That boy, Will, was already at the gates waiting for us. As soon as he saw me he ran up and apologized profusely. I told him everything would be alright as long as he didn't make that mistake again and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

We opened and closed the gates and headed toward the mountains overlooking the town. This place truly was beautiful, and if the way Tommy talked about it was true, I could see Ellie and me settling here for quite a while.

**AN: Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next chapter will be up in a couple of days. I put two up today because I thought the first chapter had been put up 3 days ago, but apparently it wasn't. So I decided I'd go ahead and write the second one. I made it a lot longer but next week I'll try to lengthen it a bit more because I know that writing this took me like an hour and a half but reading it will only take a few minutes I'm sure. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! **


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Well, buddy, you're gonna have to shoot her in the head."

We had been walking for quite a while before Tommy told us to stop. He decided we needed a break, but it was pretty obvious he was doing it for me. We were at the base of a mountain. The air was chilled with humidity and the grass was still wet from the morning dew. We had walked deep into the woods and the trek up the base of the mountain had been more than a little strenuous. While we weren't rock climbing by any means, we still were walking up a pretty steep incline and I was starting to get tired. Once again, my age was making itself known. However, I tried my best to keep up with Tommy, who in turn, tried his best to keep up with Will.

"Hey, Tommy, how much farther until we get to this little valley of yours?" I asked. I was starting to get irritated. We'd been walking all morning and had yet to see this 'abundance of game' Tommy had been talking about so excitedly.

"We'll be there soon old geezer. Believe me, when you see this place, you'll be glad I brought us out all this way," Tommy said. We finally stopped in a small clearing surrounded by huge trees. "Well, we're here old man." I looked at him, looked at the opening in the trees, and then back at him.

"This is it?" I raised my voice, more than a little pissed that he would bring us out to this dinky little area. "Why the hell would we come all the way out here for this shit?!"

Tommy laughed, "Calm down, Joel. The real place is behind this." Tommy walked over to a part of the mountain that had a thick layer of green overgrowth draped in front of it. He pulled some of the greenery to the side, revealing a hidden cave. He motioned for us to go inside. We entered and he let the greenery fall back into its natural position. I looked back at Tommy as we started to walk. He gave me a prideful grin and a wink. I chuckled and continued through the cave with Will leading us.

"I'm guessing you've brought that boy here a couple of times, huh?"

"No," Tommy said, "He actually brought me here a couple of months ago. He was raised in the mountains here. He only found us because he had lost his entire family. His brother had been killed by a bear during a hunting accident, and his mother and father died from infection, but not the infection you're thinking. They were cut by some thorn bushes and didn't have anything to sterilize the cuts with."

"Damn," I looked toward Will who was walking ahead of us, oblivious to our conversation.

"Yeah. When he told us what happened, it was kind of hard to believe. Nowadays you hear about people getting killed by the infected or hunters. You sort of forget there are other ways to die too."

"Or you get killed by the military," I added, thinking back to Sarah once again. We were quiet the rest of the walk through the cave. Our flashlights were on in order to bring some light to the darkness enveloping the cave. We rounded a corner and immediately were greeted with tiny specks of light peeking out of what looked like more shrubbery hanging in front of an exit. We turned our lights off as Will pulled the overhang of green apart, allowing light to pour in.

We walked out onto a cliff overlooking a beautiful valley. This type of beauty had been absent from my world for over twenty years. Dirt and grime were what I was used to, but seeing this beautiful landscape, pulsing with the wild game that Tommy had mentioned, gave me hope that this shithole of a world wouldn't ruin this amazing place as well. Next to the cave entrance was a small path leading down into the valley. I followed Tommy down the path, preparing myself to carry whatever we killed all the way back to the town. That was the only thing that didn't excite me about this whole situation. I laughed slightly at myself and jogged to catch up to Tommy.

Joel woke me up and told me to go Maria's in a few minutes, and that he would be back home later today. I got my stuff together and headed out the door. Remembering where Maria's was, I walked down the cracked asphalt street to her home. During the walk, I pondered over what my job as 'border patrol' guard, as Joel called it, would entail. Surely being a lookout in a place like this wouldn't see much action, so I was hoping Maria would give me a few more responsibilities.

I walked up the wooden stairs to the porch and knocked on the door. Maria greeted me and invited me in. I took in my surroundings and noticed this place was a lot more 'home-y' feeling than the house Joel and I stayed in. Curtains, although a little raggedy, hung from the windows, furniture filled the living room and kitchen, and pictures of Tommy and Maria's family before the infection covered the walls. I thought of asking about what happened to her, Tommy, and Joel's family, but decided against it. It was much too early to be getting emotional and depressed.

"Come sit with me in the kitchen, hun. I made us breakfast," she offered. I wasn't expecting much, but I was surprised to see canned bacon and some fruit on the table, dumped onto old plates. It was a little odd seeing this since I never really sat at a table to eat other than the night before. I was really used to just eating on the ground next to a fire, or eating out of a tinfoil wrapping at the military academy where I used to live. It was a nice change of pace.

"Thanks, Maria. I'm starving."

"After all the food you ate last night? How in the world could you be hungry after that meal?" My face turned red and I pushed my plate toward her. "Oh, honey, I'm only kidding. Everyone is like that, especially after all the time you and Joel spent out in the wilderness. I'm sure there wasn't much to eat at all." I just nodded at her as I stuffed my face. She was right, there was hardly ever enough to eat. I had grown up living that way, though, so it wasn't that odd to me. I was used to it.

We finished breakfast and headed outside. Maria led me towards the power plant, and at first I thought she was going to tell me she wanted me to help prepare dinner. Instead we went down a street, and then down a small alley next to a house. We found ourselves in the backyard of this little house and my curiosity got the best of me.

"You don't want me to babysit kids or anything do you?" I asked. She chuckled softly.

"No, Ellie. We came here to get you ready for your lookout duties." She walked over to a cellar door on the ground next to the back porch. She pulled a key ring out of her pocket, fiddled with the lock on the door, and then lifted one of the doors up. She motioned for me to enter while she held the door above her head. I stepped down through the doors and walked down the stairs. She dropped the door behind me with a loud 'thud' and followed behind me. It was now so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

"Just a second," Maria said. I could hear her hands rubbing against the walls, as if she was searching for something. I heard the flip of a switch and the lights flickered on.

"How are there lights on right now?" I asked. "I don't hear a generator."

"Power plant, remember? With the guys utilizing the power from the hydroelectric dam and the power plant, we're able to keep the lights on all the time. We still cut the lights off at night though. If every house in town was lit up at night, we would probably be unknowingly attracting infected and hunters. Of course, we might be far enough away that we wouldn't have to worry about it, but we still don't want to take any chances." That made sense. She kept rambling on about how everything worked, getting all scientific on me. I didn't really care about any of that, though, so I sort of just tuned her out.

We walked down a hallway and came to a door where Maria had to use her keys again. She unlocked the door and guided me inside. The room was full of crates and cabinets. Maria walked over to one of the crates, opened it and pulled out a rifle. I then realized we were in the towns little armory. She told me to go over to one of the cabinets and get some ammo for my pistol. I opened one of the doors and took in just how much ammo they had.

These cabinets were old, wardrobe cabinets. So they were as tall as I was, a few were taller, and filled with ammunition. They must've either stumbled upon this, or looted a ton of abandoned towns to get all of these resources. I wanted to look around more but Maria was already heading out. I grabbed a couple boxes of bullets and followed her out. When we emerged back out into the back yard, Maria closed and locked the door behind. I made a reminder to myself to come check this out one night after Joel went to sleep.

We made our way through town, passing a few familiar faces from supper the night before, saying hi, and continuing on our way. We found ourselves at one of the lookout towers next to the fence. It wasn't really a tower so much as it was a box on an empty house.

"Alright, Ellie, Joel says you're a pretty good shot with a gun. He also says that you don't do well with jobs like cleaning or cooking. So we've decided to let you be one of our lookouts. Every morning around this time, our night shift lookouts will be getting off. So every day you'll go to that house we went to earlier, pick up a rifle and some ammo, and come here. You'll be up there until supper, which is when the night shift guys will come and take your place." She handed me a spare key to the 'armory' and started walking away.

"Wait. Maria," I called after her. "So I just stand here all day until something pops up?"

"Pretty much," she called back. "Oh, and if you see anything suspicious, run over to that little blue house on the corner. There's an old guy in there named Tyson. He'll come check it out." I nodded and turned to look at the lookout nest.

"I think tomorrow I'm gonna pack some comic books." I sighed and climbed up the ladder to start my first day as 'border patrol.'

"Shh. Joel, you see her?" Tommy asked. I nodded looking through my scope.

"Yeah, I see her. But I feel like we could get a little closer. Plus, that boy has been killing squirrel and rabbit all day with that bow he's got. I think he should take a shot at that deer. It would be quieter too," I commented. Tommy nodded in agreement with me. He slowly crept over to Will who was crouched up on a branch, in a tree next to us. Tommy told him the plan, and Will gave me a thumbs up. Tommy crawled back over to me and told me Will was ready. We all slowly made our way toward the creature grazing in the field, taking each step as slowly and as quietly as possible.

We finally got close enough so Will could take a shot. We were right on the tree line. The deer had looked in our direction a couple of times, thanks to the branch cracking underneath my boot, but we went relatively unnoticed. Will stood up, pulled the drawstring back, and just before he was ready to shoot, a gunshot cracked in the distance. The noise startled the deer, causing her to run away. Will followed the deer with his bow all the way to the edge of the field, then let an arrow fly.

We couldn't tell if Will hit her or not, but, at the moment, we were more concerned where that shot come from, and who fired it.

"Where the hell did that come from? I thought you said there was no one around these parts, Tommy?" I asked. The first thing I thought of, though, were the remaining fireflies I was unable to kill at the hospital.

"There isn't anyone else around here," Will retorted. "Whoever fired that shot must be either passing through, or hunting like us.

"Yeah, Joel. They probably won't cause us any harm, but I think it would be best if we steered clear of them. Just in case," added Tommy. I simply nodded, and we carried on with our hunt to look for blood from the deer Will shot at. Tommy and I walked to the spot where the deer had been when Will took a shot. We came up on a large pool of blood, waved at Will to come join us at the tree line, and then followed the blood stains into the forest.

Blood was everywhere. On the side of trees, on the ground covering the leaves, on bushes, but we'd yet to see a body. There were places on the ground where the leaves looked like they had been moved around and dirt had been kicked up. This was from the deer falling to the ground and kicking around, trying to get back up. Branches were broken and bushes were knocked over. There wasn't a whole lot of tracking involved. It was pretty evident that we would find a body pretty soon.

We pushed our way through thick, blood covered shrubs, and came into another clearing, where we discovered the stag. She was laying in the middle of the field with an arrow sticking out of the side of her stomach. As we got closer, we could tell the deer was struggling to breath. We had to make this quick, though. We had been out all day and supper would be in a couple hours. In the time we had before supper, we needed to kill the deer, skin her, put her in bags, and hike our way back to the town.

We approached the dying animal and saw her look up at us. She didn't even try to escape. She knew it was the end of the line. We waited for her to die for a few minutes, but she kept on breathing.

"Well, buddy, you're gonna have to shoot her in the head," Tommy said. Will nodded, pulled back an arrow, and released, sending an arrow into the dying creature's skull, ending her pain. Will yanked both of his arrows out of the deer and put them back in their quiver. Tommy pulled a long, sharp skinning knife out of his back pack. Before he could be skinning the deer, however, another shot boomed in the distance. Only this time, it was closer. Much, much closer.

**AN: Oooo, suspense. I'll have the next chapter up in a couple of days. Thanks to the people who have read the last two chapters. I intend for this story to be a long one. I've been trying to set up the plot and while it's taking a little while, it'll be worth it. I'm definitely writing a story that is interesting to me, so I hope the rest of the people who read this feel the same. Anyway, stay tuned for chapter four in the next few days. Thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The shot reverberated off of the canyon walls. The group ran to the tree line and dropped to their bellies.

"Where the fuck did that come from?!" Will shouted.

"Shut the hell up, boy!" Tommy half-whispered, half-yelled. The overgrown grass that covered the valley floor was doing wonders to hide us from whoever shot that gun. Tommy motioned for Will to climb one of the trees and see if he could get a better vantage point. I made sure my gun was loaded, and aimed it down the south end of the valley. The good thing was that the sound didn't come from the town, and it didn't sound like it was coming from where we had already been, so it was very unlikely that whoever shot that gun knew exactly where we were.

"What are we gonna do about the deer?" asked Will.

"Screw the damn deer son, we need to get back to the town and make sure everyone is okay." I responded.

"Why do we think that they want to hurt us? Maybe they're doing exactly what we're doing and don't mean any harm." Will added.

"Son, how many people have you met that are actually like that?" I asked.

"Everyone down at the town, Joel." Tommy said.

"Listen, I know ya'll wanna think that whoever just shot that gun is real nice and peachy, but do you really wanna take that risk? What if they're like the hunters that attacked the town a few months back, Tommy?" I retorted. Tommy looked back down the valley. Obviously contemplating what our next move should be.

"Look," Will chimed in, "Why don't I just stick around and watch them?" Tommy opened his mouth to protest but Will beat him to the punch. "I'm good at hiding and I'm decent with a gun. You know that better than anyone, I can handle myself Tommy. If I see that they're a threat, I'll sneak out of the valley and report back to you at camp. If not, I'll try approaching them and see how they are."

"He makes a good argument, Tommy. He knows the valley better than any of us, you said so yourself." Tommy looked back and forth between me and Will. Finally he agreed. I left my revolver with Will. He tucked it behind his belt, waved by to us, smiled, and scurried back up the tree. Tommy and I snuck off back towards the entrance of the cave we entered the valley through. I pushed the shrubbery out of the way and stepped inside. I held it open for Tommy and saw him staring back at where we just left Will.

"He'll be fine, Tommy." I reassured. Not completely convincing myself though.

I was, half-asleep, kicked back in the chair that that Tyson guy had conveniently placed in the look-out tower when I heard a shot.

"Awesome! I hope they hit what they were aiming for." I thought. I had been keeping watch for a couple of hours before I heard the shot. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be up here. I was able to see pretty much all of the town, and especially that little armory Maria took me to. I was able to watch the people who had access to it. It appeared to be only four or five people, and it looked like instead of taking guns out of it they were taking their guns to it and then leaving them. I supposed that the town frowned upon people carrying their guns during the day, except for us look-outs.

Speaking of look-outs, I was surprised to learn that most of us weren't even adults. I could see some of the others walking to their posts, and saw that they were mostly around my age. That made me happy. I hadn't had anyone close to my age to hang out with since Sam. Maybe this town would change that.

I sat in my chair, observing the day-to-day lives of the townspeople when I saw two small figures approaching the gates. I lifted the binoculars that were unique to my tower, and saw familiar faces. I quickly climbed down the ladder, and went to meet Joel and Tommy at the gates.

They had concerned looks on their faces.

"Hey, Joel. I heard one of you shoot. I don't see any meat… Is that because your vision is going to hell in your old age?" I snidely commented.

"We didn't shoot, Ellie." He responded. I looked at him, slightly puzzled.

"Well, then who did?" Joel shrugged his shoulders. I feared the worse had happened to Will, but Tommy shot down that notion when he explained why Will stayed. "Is he gonna be okay?" I asked.

"He'll be fine," Tommy said, "That kid has been through some shit. He sorta' reminds me a' you two." Joel chuckled lightly at that. I guess he did fill Tommy in on some of the things we'd been through. I couldn't shake the feeling, however, that they maybe shouldn't have left Will out there by himself, alone, with an unknown and possibly unpredictable enemy.

Ellie opened the gates for us and we walked inside. She asked a million questions as usual and we filled her in as best we could. After satisfying her curiosity, she climbed back up the tower she had been sitting in, and left Tommy and I to our duties.

"We need to tell some people, Tommy. If there are a lot of them, and they're violent, I don't wanna be attacked while I'm sleepin'."

"I was thinking the same thing, brother. Tonight at supper we'll tell everyone what happened, and tell the evening look-outs to be on high alert." Tommy reassured.

That's exactly what we did. At supper, Tommy and I told everyone about the shots, and how we left Will for the night. No one seemed particularly worried. I guess living in this kind of world for so long gets you used to the dangers that are out there. Some of the towns people offered extra security and Tommy gladly accepted.

Later that night, when Ellie and I returned to our new home, she told me all about her day. The tower, the armory, and some old guy named Tyson she harassed for not having any comic books in her tower. I was especially interested in hearing about that armory. I was going to talk to Tommy about that the next day for sure.

Surprisingly, I slept peacefully that night.

**The Next Day**

I awoke to the sound of loud banging on the front door. I opened the door to welcome the morning sun and the cool morning air. To my chagrin, a panicked Tommy was standing at the entrance of my house.

"Joel, you need to come to the gate. There is something you need to see." Tommy spoke fast and sporadically. It worried me.

"What's wrong, Tommy. Is it Will?"

"Just follow me to the gates, Joel. And make sure Ellie is sleeping." I walked back inside to make sure Ellie was still out. I stepped out of the house, locked the door, and followed behind Tommy, walking briskly enough for me to work up a sweat. Maria caught up with us and we continued through the town toward the gate. An old grizzled looking man with an eye patch and a cane greeted us at the gate with a stern look, letting me know that whatever was on the other side was not meant for the eyes of the rest of the town. What I was shown on the other side of the gate made me sick.

It was a box. Cardboard. With blood leaking out of the bottom. I had a good idea of what this was. I opened the box to find Will's severed head. A bullet hole through the temple and a swarm of flies were the first things I noticed. His open, lifeless eyes stared at me, sending shivers down my spine. I saw a scrap of paper tucked in between his teeth. I pinched a corner of the paper and pulled, causing the paper to unfold out of his mouth. What was written on that paper made my heart stop. I widened my eyes, in disbelief. It was the one thing I thought for sure we'd escaped from.

All that was printed on that piece of paper was the symbol for the fireflies, and one simple, chilling phrase that read: "**We're coming**."

**A/N: Alright, so I know I haven't updated this since the beginning of July. I don't really have a good excuse except school. Plus, I had a slight case of writer's block. However, I'm back and ready to continue writing this story! I hope this gets those of you who have read the other three chapters re-interested, if that's a word. I love the universe of The Last of Us. I have a fairly good idea of where I want this story to go. I hope you'll all stick with me as I write, what I believe to be, an extremely fun and interesting story! Don't forget to leave me a review or comment or whatever it's called on here. I'd really appreciate some more feedback. I'll also be addressing some of the issues some people had with the last three chapters, in chapter 5. I'll hopefully have the next chapter up in, at most, two weeks. Most likely before. See ya then!**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I examined the severed head extensively. At least, as much as I could without touching it. A firefly symbol had been carved into his forehead, and his eyes had rolled to the back of his head. It was hard to look at. I lifted my head and studied the wilderness in front of me. I had no doubt that someone was watching us. I stood up, turned and walked back to Tommy and the old man.

"What should we do?" asked Tommy.

"We need to beef up defenses. Every lookout you've got needs to be on a tower, watching the forest. Make sure they're armed and ready for a fight." I said. The old man, who I later learned to be named Tyson, nodded at me and walked off to gather his lookouts. "Tommy, there's something you need to know."

"I know they're Fireflies, Joel, but how the hell did they find us? They knew we were in the valley, and they know that we're set up here. But how did they track us?" Tommy asked.

"Because they followed me here," I said quietly. Tommy's eye grew wide, and he opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. "When we were at the hospital, I didn't kill every single Firefly there." He closed his mouth, furrowed his brow and listened intently. "After I killed those surgeons and picked up Ellie, they chased me through the top floor of the hospital. They were right behind me, but I didn't stop. They didn't shoot because they didn't want to accidently hit Ellie and ruin the surgery. We got to an elevator and took it to the bottom level, where I killed Marlene. I hit the emergency stop button on the elevator to keep it from ascending back to the soldiers." Before I could go on, Tommy interjected.

"So you didn't kill all of them…" he said. Tommy started pacing back and forth, worried. "I didn't think the kid would get killed like this. I never should have left him out there alone!" Tommy yelled as he punched the gate in anger and frustration.

"Listen, Tommy, we need to go out there and track them down. We don't need to engage them, but we need to find out where they are and what there up to."

"I don't know, Joel. I think we already know what they're up to." He stared at me. I looked away. I knew this was my fault. I put him, his wife, Ellie, and everyone in the town at risk.

"But you're right, Joel." I shifted my gaze back to him. "The only way we are going to keep this town safe is if we're proactive. I'll tell Maria you and I are going on a hunt. She doesn't know about Will yet and I want to keep it that way. If I were you, I wouldn't say anything to Ellie just yet, either. Knowing her she'll probably sneak out of her watch dog duties and follow us into the forest." I nodded in agreement. That's exactly what she would do.

Tommy and I agreed to meet back at the gate in fifteen minutes after we gathered supplies. I snuck back into the house to find Ellie still sleeping. I grabbed my bag, looked back at her, and walked out the door. All I could think about was Will's disembodied head in that box, and how I might not make it back to the town if Tommy and I get caught.

I took in my surroundings as I walked back to the gate. The air was still slightly cool with a crisp breeze flowing through the air. A sign it was still spring. In Wyoming, springtime is still relatively cold, which means I still needed to where a jacket. It wasn't freezing, however, which also meant that summer was well on its way. I dropped my head as I walked. Cracks made small patterns in the concrete, and stray leaves crunched under my boots. I felt the sun's rays on the back of my neck. The sun had just come up only an hour before. I took a deep breath in. This walk would have been peaceful if not for the constant thought of the destination lingering in my mind.

When I arrived at the gate Tommy was standing there with two rifles and a backpack slung over his shoulder. He nodded at me, handed me a rifle, and opened the gate. I took one last look back at the town before following Tommy outside.

The box with Will's head was still sitting where we left it. Tommy knelt down, put his pack on the ground and started digging through it. His hand emerged from the pack gripping a black trash bag. He lifted the box and dropped it in the bag. He looked at me and then motioned toward the woods.

"I want to bury this so no one in town will find it. If the kids found this, it would be really hard explaining to them how and why this happened." Tommy said. I agreed. Most of the kids I'd seen weren't like Ellie. Sure some of them were lookouts and had killed a few infected but they'd never killed a person. Ellie was extremely well-versed in defending herself, which also meant she had witnessed an abundance of horrible things in her life. This would definitely not be the hardest thing to explain to her. Why the Fireflies are the ones who killed Will would be the hard thing to explain.

Tommy and I buried the box in the forest next to one of the streams. We figured it was as good a place as any. With that out of the way, we could now focus on the problem at hand.

"We need to head back to the valley and try to find where they killed Will." Tommy said. I grunted in agreement and followed Tommy up the mountain. I again took in the sights and surroundings. The trees were starting to grow their leaves back, making it harder to see through the forest. The sound of the stream rushing down the mountain filled my ears along with the chirping of the morning birds. Fresh dew was still on the ground, clutching to the blades of grass underneath our feet. The scent of the pine lingered in the air, offering a relaxing fragrance calming my nerves ever so slightly.

Before the outbreak happened I used to love walking in the woods. They didn't have a whole lot of that in Texas, so whenever I wanted to go sightseeing I would have to go camping for a few days. More times than not, Tommy would be with me. Our trek up the mountain was bringing back fond memories. But like before, the purpose of our journey brought me back down to earth and made me aware of what our mission was.

Before long, we found the entrance to the cave that led to the valley. Tommy turned to me and I nodded, signaling I was ready. When Tommy pulled back the overgrowth, however, I realized that I was not ready at all for what I saw. The gasp that escaped Tommy's mouth startled me. The walls of the cave were painted in blood. Body parts dangled from the ceiling of the cave and blood dripped to the ground, puddling. The stench alone took my breath away. This was not something the Fireflies did.

"We need to turn back and warn the others." I said. "This is not something you see out here, not even from hunters. This something completely different."

"No!" Tommy responded. "We are going to find whoever did this and we are going to make them pay, Joel." I tried to persuade him otherwise but he wouldn't listen. He stepped into the cave and started walking. I covered my nose and mouth and followed him. There was so much blood. As we rounded the corner we saw a pile of something laying at the end of the cave, just in front of the overgrowth. As we approached we saw that it was the deer. It had been cut open in many different places, obviously drained of blood and a few body parts. The cave wasn't covered in Will's blood, it was covered in the deer's.

We both sighed and stepped out of the cave. Tommy let the overgrowth fall back in place. I turned and started walking, but stopped as I felt something snag on my foot. I looked down and followed a shiny thread of something to either end of the opening of the cave. It was a tripwire. As soon as I realized, a large clump fell mere inches from Tommy and I, landing with a loud thump on the ground. We both fell back startled, with our guns out and pointed at the mass. We then realized that it wasn't just a random mass. It was the rest of Will's body, drenched in blood.

Tommy leaned over and threw up, and I covered my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket to keep from gagging from the awful smell. I stood up and noticed another piece of paper on Will's body. I hesitantly walked towards him and quickly snatched the paper. I unfolded it and read: **He suffered.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

He suffered. He suffered. He suffered. I kept saying those words over and over again in my head. He suffered. Why in the world would anyone do anything like that to a kid like Will? It made me furious, and also a little nervous. Thinking about the monsters that did that to Will made me start to think about what would happen if they got to the town, to Ellie. I shook my head to disperse the thoughts and looked at Tommy. What we just saw messed him up. I mean, we were already messed up. Every time we see something like this, though, it's hard to remember how we are supposed to be. How we used to be.

We started down the steep hill into the valley, leaving Will's body where it fell. The valley was still as beautiful as the day before, but now it felt tainted. The once beautiful place, untouched by the current shitty world, no longer felt vibrant and alive. The birds weren't chirping, the crickets weren't singing, and there was no abundance of life here. It was like nature decided this place was no longer fit for its beauty.

When we got to the bottom of the hill Tommy immediately made a dash to the tree line. I followed.

"What's wrong, Tommy?"

"There." He whispered, motioning to the field with his head. I looked and saw a group of four people, walking in formation. They walked in single file and slightly crouched, like they were ready for us. Tommy shuffled around behind me and propped his rifle on my shoulder to look steadily down the scope.

"Three men, one woman. Strange. Hunters don't travel with women." Tommy whispered, mostly to himself. He was right, hunters don't travel with women. But people like David did. They might be using her as bait, or maybe she is a prisoner. Or maybe a Firefly.

"They're all carrying automatic rifles, pistols holstered at their sides, Kevlar vests that look military. And…" Tommy stopped short.

"And what?" I asked.

"They have Firefly logos on their arms."

"Where are Joel and Tommy? Did they go hunting again?" I asked. I thought I heard Joel leave this morning but I didn't pay much attention to it.

"Yeah, they should be back by tonight, though. I think they went to see how Will is doing, too." Maria replied. "Don't forget to go by the armory this morning before you go to the tower. You won't do us much good if you can see a threat but can't shoot it." Maria joked. I laughed, reassured her I had everything under control, finished my breakfast she cooked for me, and started making my way to the armory.

I packed some of my old comic books to re-read while sitting in the tower, and also packed my old pistol. I asked Maria about whether or not people carried guns in the town. She told me that she and Tommy asked the adults to not wear their weapons out in the open, for the kids. They wanted the town to feel as "normal" as possible. When I told her that wearing your guns out in the open was normal, she smiled and said, "The old normal, Ellie."

I still think about how different the old world was. When I found that diary in the farmhouse I ran away to last fall, it was sort of an eye-opener for me. Reading about how easy people had it back then, not having to worry about finding food, or shelter, or people coming to take those things from you must have been strange. I kept that diary in the bottom of my bag for so long I forgot it was there until the other night. Of course I dragged it out and read it front to back, relishing on how I wish life was really still that easy.

When I got to the basement door, I noticed it was already unlocked. Out of instinct, I pulled my pistol out of my bag and crept down the stairs. The lights were already on. I saw a shadow and heard the banging of someone dropping a lid back onto one of the weapon crates. I came around the corner and saw a kid standing there. He looked to be a couple years older than me in the face, but in stature, we were basically the same height. He wore thick rimmed, cracked glasses, and had short, dark hair. He seemed startled when he saw me.

"Wh-who are you?" he stuttered. Obviously nervous. He was holding one of the rifles meant for the lookouts.

"I'm Ellie, the new lookout. Who are you?" I asked, still holding my pistol, which he noticed.

"Oh, I'm Benjamin. B-but everybody calls me Benny." He slung the rifle over his shoulder. "I'm one of the lookouts too." He sure didn't have the appearance of a lookout. He seemed like his own shadow would startle him. He started fiddling with the strap on his rifle when I noticed something sticking off the end of the barrel.

"What's that thing?" I asked, pointing to the cylindrical object.

"Oh, this thing?" I nodded. "It's my suppressor. My job is to shoot any threat I see that gets too close to the town. I don't want anything far off to hear me so I use this…" He was so soft spoken. Like every word was deliberate but hard to get out.

"Wow, that's so cool!" I yelled probably a bit too loudly. "Where can I get one of those?" I walked to the crate he was standing in front of and popped the lid.

"They don't have any here. I found this a long way from here about a year ago." He said. He looked away.

"What were you doing so far away from town? Were you with your parents when you found this place?" I asked. He was quiet for too long. I shifted my gaze to him and saw him looking at the floor.

"My parents are…." He started, "They've been gone a long time." He started walking to the stairs. I wanted to apologize but I just stood there. I knew how he felt. My parents had been gone a long time too.

I dropped my pack in the corner of the tower and sat down in the raggedy chair that I left from yesterday. I dug through my bag and pulled out one of the comic books at random, kicked my feet up and started reading some Savage Starlight. Every now and then I would glance at the forest, scan the tree line and then drop my head back down to my book. I stayed that way for a while before hearing a familiar, muffled sound.

My eyes shot up toward the forest and saw an infected fall to the ground in a heap. I lifted my rifle and looked through the scope to see that it was dead. I looked around to see where the shot came from. I then heard a whistle. To my left about 75 yards down the fence, I saw someone waving at me. I positioned my rifle to see that Benny was sitting in a tower still waving. He wasn't waving to get my attention, more to let me know that he was the one who killed the infected.

Benny was obviously a good shot. Looking at the infected, I noticed that blood started pouring out from its head and running down the hill. That infected must've been 150-200 yards away but he was still able to put one right in its head. I understood then why Maria and the others decided he should be a lookout. He might be a little nervous and twitchy, but he knew how to kill. It was at that moment that I decided that Benny and I were going to become good friends.

"I don't know what to do, Joel." Tommy said, "I might take one of them out if I take a shot but this rifle is a bolt action. Even if they somehow don't see where the first shot came from and I take another shot, they'll see where the shots are coming from eventually and unload those auto rifles towards the tree line. I can't shoot and reload fast enough to take them all out." He was right. They were Fireflies. Trained like the military. They would see us and take us out without a problem. The only way we could take them is if they couldn't see us. That's when I had an idea.

I rummaged through my bag and pulled out an old refried beans can, a small bag of sugar, some alcohol, and a few broken scissors. I looked at Tommy, and with a grin said, "Maybe we don't need to shoot them." Before he could say anything, I put my finger up to my mouth to signal him to keep quiet. I then crafted the nail bomb. I had gotten so good at this in the past year I could do it with my eyes closed. If I ever saw Bill again, I'd have to remember to thank him.

I waited until the soldiers were all either looking at the ground, each other, or the tree line opposite from us to throw my bomb into the middle of the path.

"What the fuck are you doing!?" Tommy half yelled, half whispered.

"Just trust me, boy!" I responded in the same tone of voice. I laid flat on the ground and motioned for Tommy to follow suit. Then we waited. It took a few minutes for them to get close enough but when they did I whispered, "Get ready, Tommy." Each step they took became longer and longer until… BOOM! The bomb went off and shredded two soldiers in the front, killing them. The other two fell down, bloodied, but got back up quickly. I looked at Tommy and yelled, "NOW!"

We both fired. Tommy's bullet hit the last male soldier in the neck, sending him to the ground. My bullet hit home. Right in the temple of the woman. They were all dead. Tommy started to stand up but I put a hand on his back to stop him.

"Stay put, Tommy. There has to be others in the area. Hell, they could've just witnessed what we did. We need to stay low." Tommy nodded and laid back down.

We waited for what felt like hours before we decided to push on into the valley. We would go back to check the bodies later if our search for reinforcements came up empty. The sun was starting to go down. We still had a few hours left before it would be completely dark, but this was a big valley. We needed to cover as much ground as possible without getting lost or seen, and we needed to save ourselves some daylight to get back to the town without having to walk blindly through the forest.

We stayed deep enough inside the trees so we wouldn't be seen from the fields, but close enough to them so we could see if any other Fireflies were trying to come to the aid of their fallen comrades. We walked several miles until we came to the other side of the valley. I scanned the base of the mountain looking for a cave or path like ours that would lead out to the other side of the mountain. Sure enough, I found another cave.

"There." I said. "That's how they're getting into the valley."

"We should probably go check it out." Tommy said. I nodded, and started walking up the path to get to the cave. I expected to start hearing shots, like we had walked into an ambush, but I never did. We walked until we were right in front of the cave, this one also covered, poorly, by a thick moss overgrowth. I looked at Tommy. He nodded towards the cave. I pulled the moss back just enough so I could poke my head through. And… Nothing. Just a long path through the mountain.

I pulled my head out and turned to Tommy. "They've got to be set up on the other side of this mountain."

"Do you want to keep going?" Tommy asked.

"No. We'd probably be walking into a trap. I think we need to set up some more nail bombs in and around the cave entrance. Maybe if the rest of them try to come through here, the bombs'll take 'em out." Tommy nodded in agreement. I dropped my pack onto the ground and started digging through it looking for supplies. I had just enough to make three bombs. I then pulled out some clear thread that I could use as trip wire.

"Okay, I am going to walk a few feet into the cave and set up this trap. When I come back out, I'm going to need you to start setting up a tripwire right at the entrance of the cave, here on the outside. Then on the way back, close to the entrance of our cave, we're going to set up another tripwire so if they decide to try and come back to the town, this bomb will cut them off too." I planned.

"Sounds good. Also, sounds like you've done this a few times." Tommy said.

"Yeah," I sighed, "I've got some experience."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"So, you guys killed some hunters?" Ellie asked. She asked in a way that didn't sound like she felt sorry or worried for me. It sounded more like a statement than a question.

"Yeah. Four of 'em. In the valley." I paused. I contemplated telling Ellie that they were Fireflies, but decided against it. I did decide, however, to tell her about everything else. About hearing the gunfire when Tommy, Will, and I were in the valley that first day, and how Tommy and I left Will there so he could do some recon for us. Also how Will's head ended up in a box in front of the gate, and when his body fell in front of me just outside the cave.

"Wait," Ellie interjected, "There was a box outside the front gate? How did the lookouts miss someone dropping off a box like that?" That was a good question. There are normally two guards within 30 yards of the gate at all times. It doesn't seem right that they would miss something like that.

"I don't know. I think Tommy and I are gonna have a word with the night shift tomorrow. Speaking of which, how are you liking your job?"

"It's fine. It's just kinda boring. We really aren't getting any action. I did see one of the lookouts shoot an infected, though, so that was pretty cool." She smiled.

"I hope you aren't goofing off too much up in that tower," I joked. "I good shot like you should be scanning the woods for any sign of a threat."

"Yeah, whatever. You better hope I don't mistake you for an infected," She retorted. Ellie had always been very independent. Even when we first met. I remember when she, Tess, and I were cutting through Boston trying to get to the capital building. I lowered that plank across the two buildings for her to walk across, all the while trying to tell her to be careful. She quickly blew me off and walked across that board like it was nothing. I enjoyed memories like that. They reminded me that there was still some good left in the world. Even if the only bit of good left was inside one, special little girl.

The next day started like pretty much every other day Ellie and I had been at Tommy's. Tommy woke me up from a dead sleep by incessantly beating on the door and I quietly left the house with my bag, succeeding in making sure Ellie stayed asleep. By the time we left the sanctuary of the town, Tommy later called Jakson, I was in the zone. I knew what Tommy and I were going to do today. We were going to go through that cave we found the day before, track down those Fireflies, and kill every damn one of them.

Before we reached the entrance to the cave leading into the valley, Tommy and I stopped at a large tree. At the base of the tree was a hole large enough to fit the supplies we pulled off those dead Fireflies. The soldiers all had pistols and assault rifles, along with Kevlar vests and better backpacks. I switched out the supplies in our backpacks so we could carry theirs, Tommy switched his rifle with one of the assault rifles, and we both put on the lightweight Kevlar vests underneath our regular clothes.

We both had scars. Pretty rough ones, actually. Tommy noticed the scar on my stomach and asked what happened. I told him about the incident at the University, and how that rebar pipe put me out of commission for several weeks. I also told him about how there was nothing but a dead man and some monkeys at the college he sent us to, which got a laugh out of him. He replied by telling me he thought my life was getting too easy, so he figured he'd throw a rusty rebar pipe in the mix to liven things up.

Our trip into and through the valley was smooth sailing, which normally wasn't a good sign. The fact that the bodies from the day before hadn't been tampered with or moved, and the bombs hadn't been set off worried me. Tommy too. We were both starting to get paranoid. Constantly scanning the field and the tree lines were wearing me out. When we finally got to the other side of the valley, to the cave, we saw something we hadn't wanted to see. The same thing we saw the day before.

None of the bombs had been set off there either. Not even in the cave. That was either a really good sign, or, most likely, a really bad sign. There were definitely more than four soldiers chasing me the day I took Ellie from the Fireflies. Maybe this was just a small cell of them and we wouldn't have to worry about more of them coming to their aid, especially now since their leader had been shot in the head.

"Well, brother, you ready to go?" Tommy asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be." With that, Tommy took point with his assault rifle and started into the cave.

"What's that over there?" I asked.

"That?" Maria asked. "Oh, that door leads under the town and out to the dam."

"Why is it locked?"

"To keep the younger kids from trying to play in there. See, there is a tunnel in there that runs all the way under the town to the doors. If any of the kids got in there and fell out of the open doors, we wouldn't be able to get them out of the water because of the current, and they would drown," she explained.

"But I thought the dam was operated by the generator in that warehouse on the other side of town?" I asked.

"Well, technically, the generator only harnesses the motion from the water at the dam to produce energy. Every now and then, especially during the winter, we like to close the dam doors for a few hours a day so we can catch the fish that swim down the water here," she explained. I laughed.

"You said dam doors," I snickered. She let out a small laugh and stopped at the lookout tower she was walking me to. She told me she wanted me to sit in Benny's tower today because he was sick and wouldn't be able to.

"Alright," she started," Your job today is really complicated. So listen up, okay?"

"Okey dokey!" I said, excited about new responsibilities.

"You have to… do pretty much the same exact thing you've been doing every other day!" She laughed. I went from being excited to disappointed, really fast. "The only reason I have you here and not Tyson, is because he's got that eyepatch. Basically he has pretty bad depth perception and can only see the gate if he's on the right side of it. The side his good eye is on." She laughed again.

"Don't worry, boss. I'll do the best I can to not disappoint you in doing the same duties I've been doing every single day!" With a final salute from me, and a last laugh from Maria, I climbed up the tower and sat down in the not-as-raggedy-as-my-normal-seat-but-still-raggedy-chair.

Tommy dug through the big bag left behind at the camp of the four soldiers we had killed the previous day.

"They ain't got shit here, Joel. No walkey's, no extra ammo or supplies, not even a map of the area. They must've been defectors or something." I breathed a sigh of relief. No sign of any reinforcements or reasons for being here. Just a bunch of washed up Fireflies wanting to take out their anger on the unsuspecting.

Tommy and I had made our way through the cave without a hitch. No traps, no nothing. When we emerged from the other side of the mountain, we came up on a small clearing about 50 yards from the cave entrance. That clearing was where those four Fireflies decided to set up camp. I had a hard time believing that there were only four of them in one area, so we double-checked. We couldn't find any signs of previous soldiers, tracks, or recent activity. All that was left were some tents, a campfire, and a meal they started to cook but never finished. We walked a few miles through the forest, looking for any signs of more soldiers, but came up empty. There were actually only four soldiers for once. No funny business.

Just to be sure, however, we decided to lay low close by the campsite to see if anyone showed up. When the sun started going down, we decided that it was time to head back. What a relief it was to know that we eliminated the threat lingering over the town. We would tell everyone the good news when we made it back home that night.

I put my comic back in my bag, opened the door to the small box sitting on the vacant house we used as the base for the lookout, and climbed the ladder down to the ground. I let out a big yawn. Sitting around all day reading comic books was exhausting. It also made me extremely hungry. I decided after I put my rifle back in the armory, I would try to help the people who cooked dinner. It was the least I could do to help. Besides, like I said, all I did was sit around and read comic books all day.

The sun was setting. It painted the sky in magnificent oranges and purples. The cool breeze flowing through Jakson made it feel like a home for some reason. It was comfortable there. Having people who are nice and take care of each other really made me feel like Joel and I belonged there. Most of all, though, it made me feel like I had a purpose. To help protect these people and live life the way it was meant to be lived. In happiness.

"Which one should I be aiming for?"

"Which one do you think you should be aiming for?"

"Well, the girl just got out of the tower. Looks like it's not Grandpa Eyepatch's lucky day."

"Stop fucking around. Locke should have everything set. We should be getting the signal right about... there it is. Let's do this. Shoot that old motherfucker already."

"With pleasure."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The valley felt peaceful. The trees swayed with the wind, the pleasant scent of flowers from the fields filled our noses, and the sky was a magnificent orange. Life had come back into the valley. With the knowledge that there were no longer any Fireflies threatening the safety of Jakson, the walk home was much less stressful than the walk to the Firefly campsite. On the way, we cleaned up the traps we had set. There was no longer any need for them.

"Well shit." Tommy said. "What the hell are we supposed to do about tomorrow? There aren't any more Fireflies for us to hunt down." We shared a chuckle.

"I reckon we'll just have to keep hunting like we did that first day," I responded. That brought back recent memories of Will. That poor kid. We needed somebody else to come with us now that he was gone. I thought about talking to Maria about bringing Ellie with us the next morning. She would probably love the idea of getting out of that tower.

My thoughts were cut short by the sound of gunfire.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

"It sounded like it came from the town. Don't worry about it. Probably just one of the lookouts taking potshots at some infected." Tommy reassured me. However, the look on his face changed after hearing several shots soon after. "That can't be good. Either there are a lot of infected, or hunters are attacking the town again. Tyson isn't that bad of a shot. Even with that eyepatch of his."

Tommy and I took off in a sprint. Our destination: Jakson.

**Back at Jakson…**

The first shot brought me out of my thoughts. The second shot made me realize that the lookouts weren't shooting. The third shot made me turn around to see old man Tyson falling out of his tower. His body landing on the ground with a loud and disturbing thud. I immediately took shelter behind one of the houses. The townspeople started running in every direction. Just because I knew the general direction that the shots were coming from didn't mean everyone else did.

Disoriented people started running down the main street to find cover. I watched body after body hit the ground after a bullet flew through each person. I decided to sneak around the other side of the house to see if I could get a bead on wherever the shots were coming from. Even as I rounded the corner of the house, bullets were still flying down the main street. It was a massacre.

I dropped to my knee and lifted my scope up to my eye. I scanned the tree line. Nothing but green and hills, until a recognizable flash from a muzzle caught my eye. There were two men standing at the edge of a cliff around 400 yards from where I stood. Even if I was in one of the towers it would be a hard shot for me to take. The fact that they were hitting us with pinpoint accuracy told me that they had to be at least ex-military. Nobody was that good a shot. I had to try though. I had to keep the rest of the townspeople safe.

I put the crosshair right on the forehead of the sniper and put my finger on the trigger, but before I could do the deed, I watched through my scope as his head exploded. The man standing next to him stood up and started to run away, but immediately fell to the ground after a bullet passed through his temple. "That must be Joel and Tommy!" I thought. I sat and waited for them to come into the view of my scope, but they never showed. I then realized who it must've been.

"Ellie! A-are you okay?" Benny came running up beside me.

"Was that you just then?" I half asked, half yelled.

"Yeah," he responded. "I shot them through the window in my house. They were so focused on the street they didn't think to look towards any of the houses."

"Who are they? Hunters?"

"Nah, I don't th-think so. Hunters aren't as skilled with rifles as these guys are." All I could think was how I was glad he was on our side. I quickly told him how I had my crosshairs on the sniper.

"You wouldn't have hit him." He said matter-of-factly.

"Why not? I'm a good shot." I responded confidently.

"That may be true, but they were much too f-far away for you to shoot with your crosshairs on his head. The bullet would have dropped in mid-air and hit the ground beneath them. That would have given away your p-position, and then you would have been done for. The only way to hit someone from that distance is by aiming a foot or two above their head. That allows the bullet to drop while still hitting its target." Again. Glad he was on our side.

"How do you know about stuff like that?" I asked. He turned away.

"Parents." He stood up and started making his way to the gate.

"Where are you going? Those people on the street need help."

He looked back at me and pointed toward the gate. "Those snipers weren't the only attackers. More are coming over the walls." I looked past him and saw several men dressed in dark clothing coming over the walls. "We need to take them out before they get too far into the town." He was so calm. Like he had been through this before. He ran a short distance in front of me, lifted his rifle, looked down the scope and fired off two shots. In one swift movement, he had killed 2 of the "hunters" on top of the wall, which sent them falling to the ground in a dead heap. I followed closely behind him. I figured being with him was the safest place I could be at that moment.

His suppressor was keeping the enemy from knowing our exact location. Every person that was smart enough, or unlucky enough, to look in our direction got a bullet through the eye. He was an amazing shot and put down these guys without a second thought.

"We need to get to the armory," he said. "You need an automatic rifle. I have a plan." I simply nodded and followed his lead through the maze of houses and alley's. Eventually we jumped over a fence that landed us in the backyard where the armory door was located. He unlocked the door, lifted it up and motioned for me to enter. I followed his direction and started rummaging through the crates, looking for an auto rifle and lots of ammunition. After I found what I needed, I emerged to find another dead "hunter" hanging over one side of the fence.

"He followed us. Got what you need?" He asked.

"Yeah. I got you some extra magazines, too." He smiled and nodded in gratification. He seemed so comfortable in this situation. He was definitely in his element. We hopped the fence and started making our way towards the middle of town.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"There is a house in the middle of town that is currently unoccupied. We're going there so I can get set up to take out the rest of these guys."

"What about me?"

"I'll tell you when we get there." The house was right around the corner and just like Benny said, it was unoccupied. We locked the door behind us and started making our way upstairs. He pointed towards a room and told me to open all of the windows. I did as I was told and ran back into his room where he was setting up a chair and desk to rest his gun on.

"Okay. Now what do I do." I asked.

"Take this." He stretched out his arm to hand me something yellow.

"A walkie-talkie?"

"I need you to go back down to the streets and run through every alley and house down there. I'll be your eyes. The only way we are going to fight these guys off is if we hunt them down ourselves."

I nodded and started walking out of the room when he said: "Also, do be careful. I don't feel like doing _all_ the work." He flashed a grin, which I reciprocated. I ran downstairs and made sure every door and window was locked before I left. I didn't need my "eyes" getting blindsided while I was gone.

Running through the town, hunting the "hunters" was something I hadn't done in a while. I'll admit, it was a rush. I clipped the walkie to my pack strap and radioed in to Benny.

"Benny, this is Ellie. You there?"

"You have to say over when you're done talking… Over."

"Jesus, I'm not gonna start this. Where do I need to go first?" He laughed.

"Head back towards the armory. If more of them were following us and they find our stash of guns, then it'll be bad news for us down the road. Over."

"Got it." I followed the same path we took to get to the house the first time. "Hey, so, when we get done with this, do you think you could teach me how to shoo-." As I rounded a corner, a hunter was already poised and ready to fire. Before I could even lift my gun, I heard a muffled gunshot rip through the air. I closed my eyes, expecting to be dead. When I realized I wasn't, I opened them and saw the hunter on the ground with a hole in his head.

"Focus on the task at hand, Ellie. But yeah, I'll teach you when we get through this. Over." I continued my mission to the armory. I met several more hunters along the way, but they were either put down from two auto rounds to the chest, or Benny putting one through their skulls. Luckily, when I arrived at the armory there were no hunters in sight.

"It's clear at the armory, Benny… Over." I said reluctantly.

"Good. Now I need you to – wait a second…" Two muffled gunshots ripped through the air in the distance. "Sorry. I need you to go to Maria's. Do you remember how to get there?"

"Oh, shit! I forgot about Maria!" I yelled. I took off towards her house. Benny was yelling at me to calm down, but I disregarded him. Tommy would kill me if something happened to her. Every corner I rounded, or clearing I ran out into was littered with fresh bodies. Benny was taking them out before I could even see them. He let out a frustrated yell when I started blindly running to Maria's and decided to be proactive. I didn't even hear the gunshots at that point. I didn't hear much of anything.

I came out behind one of the houses about a block down from Maria's and lifted my rifle to see clearly down the street. I scanned the road. Nothing. I then lifted my scope to Maria's front door to see it had been kicked in, blown apart.

"Shit!" I yelled, taking off down the street.

"Ellie, stop! We need to plan this out," Benny reasoned.

"There's no time, Benny. They're in there with her right now!" I made it to the porch and started leaping up the stairs, three at a time. Before I could make it to the top, a hunter came out of the front door with his pistol pointed straight at me. Benny made quick work of him, which allowed me access to the house.

When I entered, three men were in the living room. Two closer to the front door, and one by a window. I caught them off guard which gave me time to put a round in the first hunter's head, and two in the second hunter's chest. I turned to the third. The window next to him shattered to pieces, and he fell to the floor. A bullet hole in his temple. I combed through each room downstairs. If they didn't know I was here before, they definitely knew now.

"Ellie, before you head upstairs, you should know that I can see Maria. She's in a room on the front facing side of the house, but there are two men in there with her… and one has a knife to her neck."

"Can't you take him out?" I asked.

"Of course. The problem is, if I do he could fall down still gripping the knife, which could possibly slide across Maria's throat-"

"Killing her…" I finished. He confirmed. I was running through possible scenarios in my mind. Every outcome would find either Maria or myself dead. "We're gonna have to take that risk, Benny. I don't see any other way. If I bust up in there, they might slit her throat without a second thought. But if we wait too long trying to come up with a plan, they might kill her anyway."

"… Okay." He said. "I'm going to count to three. When you hear the glass break, that'll be your cue to break the door down while the second hunter is disoriented." This was a big gamble. "Are you in place?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "I'm ready."

"Okay. One…" I gripped my rifle so hard my knuckles turned white. "Two…" I pointed my rifle at the door knob and place my finger on the trigger. This was it.

"Three."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I heard one of the windows shatter from the other side of the door. I pointed my rifle at the doorknob, fired off two rounds and kicked the door open. Benny delivered on his part.

Instead of taking a head shot like we planned, Benny shot the man in the arm he was using to hold the knife. When the man dropped the knife, he took a bullet to the brain. That's when I came into the room. With the second "hunter" thrown off guard by the sudden death of his partner, he made an easy kill. I pulled the trigger three times. He fell to the floor.

This all happened within seconds. I immediately scanned the room. No signs of hidden enemies. I dropped to my knees in front of Maria.

"Maria, are you…" I stopped breathing. She was lying on her stomach, her head facing away from me. There was a fresh wound on the back of her head that was seeping blood. I looked at the rest of her body. She wasn't breathing. I walked to the other side of her to see her face. I almost cried. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were only half shut, staring at me, lifelessly. They had killed her.

"Ellie, is Maria safe? I had the idea to shoot the guys' arm, literally, right when I said three. I wasn't even sure it would work… Are you there, Ellie?" Benny called over the walkie. At first I didn't even register the sound of his voice. I was too lost in looking at Maria's corpse. First Riley, then Sam and Henry. And now Maria. Everyone was dying.

I took several deep breaths and stood up. I buried the pangs of sadness I was feeling and responded to Benny.

"She's gone, Benny. It looks like they hit her in the back of the head with something earlier. They killed her before we even made it to the house. They wanted to use her as a trap." Benny was quiet. He obviously had more of an attachment to Maria than I did. We sat in silence for several seconds until he finally spoke up.

"We need to keep going through the town. If we sit here mourning over Maria now, then many other people could die. We can mourn later…" He said. I closed Maria's eyes and stood up. I walked to the shattered window and looked out onto the streets. It was quiet. Maybe that was a good thing. It probably wasn't though. I turned around, stepped over Maria's body and made my way out of the house to continue hunting whoever was attacking us.

**Outside of town…**

The sight of the town, broken and bloodied, sent a violent shock of anxiety through my body. Tommy and I had made our way back through the valley and the mountain to find this. I came upon two dead men. Both with bullet holes in their heads.

"That must've been Ellie." I said.

"No. She's a good shot, Joel, but there's only one person in the entire town who could've taken a shot like that. Let's hope he's still alive." He started down the hill to the town. The front gate was wide open. As we approached, we noticed more bodies both on the ground outside of the fence, and on top of it. Again with kill shots to the head. When we passed through the gate, the site that awaited us was one I had hoped not to see.

Bodies. Everywhere. On the porches of houses, on the front lawns, in the middle of the street. I counted around twenty-five. Not just men either. Women and children, too. A good portion of the town's populace. Many were killed with gunshots, but signs also pointed to blades being used to slaughter them.

"Fuck… They were slaughtered… Look, "Tommy pointed towards one of the houses, "They got Tyson too. Shot him right out of his tower." Tommy looked at me, suddenly with urgency in his eyes. "We have to find Maria and Ellie!" He bolted toward our houses. I followed closely behind.

"I'm gonna see if Ellie's inside!" I said as my house came into view. He grunted in approval and kept running. I leapt up the stairs to mine and Ellie's home. The door was kicked in. I readied my assault rifle and crept in through the front door. No one was in the living room, but I heard rustling upstairs. I sneaked to the staircase and started slowly making my way up. Every creak the stairs let out was torturous, but I was never discovered. I continued down the small hallway to a door left slightly ajar that led into a spare bedroom. I could hear whispers from the other side of the door.

"I don't know who the fuck is shooting all of our men, but goddamn are they accurate!" said the first voice.

"Yeah, I vote we lay low here for a while. Maybe whoever's doing all the killing will come out and we can get the drop on them," added the second. Two other voices grunted in agreement. Four. I reached into my pack and pulled out one of the bombs. I walked to the door, opened it a little further and said, "Bad call," before rolling the bomb into the room. It immediately went off, destroying the glass windows and tearing the intruders apart.

I double-checked to see if anyone had survived. In the corner, with her arm mangled and broken, and her face de-gloved by the bomb, sat a woman. She was struggling to breathe. I walked to her slumping form and stomped on her arm. She screamed in agony.

"FUCK! GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT! I'LL KILL…" I lifted my foot and stomped again, further shattering her already broken arm. She let out another blood curdling scream.

I squatted down and looked her dead in her bleeding eye. "You're gonna tell me just what the hell you're doing here, or I swear to God I'll make your death much longer and much more painful than it has to be." I pulled out my revolver and stuck it in a wound in her side. She groaned in agony.

"Fine! I'll tell you!" I dug the barrel of the gun deeper into her side. Incentive for her to continue. "Someone killed most of my crew back in Salt Lake," I let my mouth hang open slightly out of awe that they had tracked me this far. "We were set up in a hospital when a crazy man came in and started killing us for no reason. He killed the only doctors we had. We managed to track the vehicle he took to get here. We saw that it was parked on the road not far from here, so we walked until we found this town and…"

"And that's when you decided to fuck with the wrong people." I stood up and aimed my gun. She put out her arm and begged me not to.

I did anyway.

I holstered my gun and started checking the corpses for anything that would point me in the direction of more Fireflies. If they had really tracked me this far, for this many weeks, why would they just attack a random town. Surely they came across others. What I found sent chills down my spine. One of the men had a folded piece of paper in his back pocket. The paper had a description of Ellie and me on it.

_You're targets are two people. One man, one girl. The man is Caucasian, late forties/early fifties, dark hair and scraggly beard, approximately 6 feet tall. This man is responsible for the murders of over two dozen of your comrades. The girl, also Caucasian, is in her mid-teens with red hair and has a very distinct voice. If you hear her, you'll most likely know what is meant by that. This girl is of great importance to us as she is the only known living person that is immune to the cordyceps virus. She must be taken alive at all costs. The man may be killed or brought back alive. If killed, sever the head as proof of his expiration._

The bottom of the document was stamped with the symbol for the Fireflies. Without much thought, I took a match from my pack, lit it, and burned the document. If Ellie had found one of those documents, then everything I had tried to bury would rise to the surface.

I turned to hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I readied my rifle and waited. I saw dirty blond hair and put my gun down. When Tommy came up the stairs, his face had agony and pain written all over it. He stopped in the hallway and just stared at me.

"Tommy are you ok?" I asked. He kept staring. I started walking towards him.

"Maria is dead." He said. His voice, monotone and dry. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been crying. I kept walking towards him.

"Oh no… Tommy what happened to…" He cut me off. I will never forget what he said to me. "We are going to find the rest of these motherfuckers, and when we do we are going to kill them. When we're finished with them, we are going to bury our dead. And after we bury our dead, you are going to leave this town and never come back." His fists were clenched the entire time, knuckles white. I opened my mouth to say something, anything to improve upon the situation, but nothing came out. Tommy turned and walked down the stairs, out of the house and back down the street to the home he and Maria once shared. I walked out of the room and closed the door, leaving the bodies I had massacred.

**The next day…**

Eventually we found Ellie. When we found her she was communicating to someone via a walkie-talkie strapped to her backpack. She started to tell Tommy something but he stopped her. He didn't even look at her, or say anything. All he did was hold his hand up and say, "I know." We walked through every house in town, but couldn't find any more soldiers. Apparently, Ellie and some other kid named Benny had taken out most of the Fireflies. I assumed Benny must've been the good shot that Tommy was talking about. Soon, we had cleared the town out, and began cleaning up the bodies left on the streets.

We worked through the night. Those who had managed to either hide away in their houses or fight back volunteered to do various tasks in the wake of all the deaths. Some offered to be temporary lookouts, while some offered to start the fires we would use to burn the dead soldiers. There were about the same amount of soldiers' dead as denizens of Jakson, but the numbers were still too large. The most substantial loss was Maria. Without her, Jakson didn't have a leader. I guessed Tommy would step up to the plate. Only time would tell.

Even though we were together the entire time, Tommy never said one word to me. He never even glanced in my direction, let alone acknowledge my existence. I couldn't blame him, though. This entire thing was my fault. If I wouldn't have left such an easy trail to follow, maybe this could have been avoided. Maybe if I had been more thorough at the hospital, we would still have Will, Maria, and many of the townspeople.

Ellie told me all about what happened while Tommy and I were gone. About the first shots she heard, seeing Benny take out so many "hunters" as she called them, and running through the town to get to Maria. She asked me if Tommy would be alright.

"Honestly, I don't know. He isn't in the mood to talk right now." I answered. She just nodded and left it at that. For once she didn't press on the subject. She told me she was going to go back up into the house Benny had held up in during the raid. I nodded and watched her run off. I looked back at Tommy to see him walking back to his house. He had carried Maria's body to their bed and wrapped her in the sheets. Apparently, Maria wanted to be cremated when she died, so Tommy spent the rest of the day building a small altar at the edge of town to do just that. I spent the rest of the day packing up mine and Ellie's things. We didn't have much, but I figured we should be prepared.

**The next day…**

I met Tommy at the edge of town, on a small hill overlooking the large river that Ellie and I traveled along to reach Jakson back in the fall. He had just placed Maria on the altar.

"She was so kind," he started. "The first time we met, she and I had a similar encounter to the one you and Ellie had with us. She told me I 'looked like trouble.' It took her damn near 3 months just to let me carry a gun around her people. Then one day we started talking more than usual. About little things, like the old world. Soon, we became pretty interested in one another. You know the story from there." He turned around to face me, his eyes red and swollen from crying the previous days. "I loved her more than anything, Joel. I thought we'd make it, her and me." He looked down and clenched his fists again. "Until you came back. Right up until the moment I saw your face last fall, everything was going smoothly. Sure we had the typical infected attacks, hunter raids, that sort of thing. But we always managed. Then, you show up with that little girl and start doing what you're best at. Turning everything to shit!" He yelled this time.

"Now, Tommy, you know I didn't mean for any of this to…"

"Shut the fuck up, Joel!" I was taken aback. Tommy was always reasonable, always thought things through. He never had outbursts like this. Maria's death had already changed him. "If you had just stayed in Boston, none of this would've happened! You wouldn't have Ellie to worry about, and I would still have Maria! What do you think Ellie would say if she found out that you're the reason this happened!? Huh, Joel? Why don't we go find her and tell her!?" He started walking back towards the town. I ran in front of him.

"Stop, Tommy, you're not thinking." I put my hand on his shoulder to try to stop him. He slapped my hand away and threw a punch that landed straight on my nose. I fell back and immediately felt blood rushing down my face and neck.

"No. Don't tell me to stop, Joel. You should've told her what you did from the very beginning. But because you're too selfish and too much of a coward, you're gonna try to hide it from her forever."

"Tommy, please." I pleaded. "Don't tell Ellie." A voice rang out amongst Tommy's threats. A voice that was filled with curiosity, fear, and hurt. A voice that made my heart stop. I looked back, and saw Ellie standing several feet away from us. She was clutching a piece of paper in her hands. She looked at me and said four words I'll never forget:

"You lied to me."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Reflections

**6 Years Later…**

I sat on the cold, cracked asphalt of an old road, leaning against a rusted and forgotten pick-up in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where I was or how long I had been out there. I stared out into the distance, watching the sunrise over a rotted field of dead corn. The suns ray's hit my eyes, causing me to squint. I lowered my gaze to the lifeless corpse lying beside me. Around him, other bodies rested in contorted positions, grotesquely twisted and broken. They had attacked me while I walked down that long, seemingly unending road.

I looked back at the sky and sunrise after my eyes had adjusted. I stared blankly in that same position the entire night, thinking upon my actions. Something I never did. Normally I would justify my actions using survival as an excuse. However, that night, I sat and pondered my meaningless existence and soon came to realize one thing.

I was an animal.

They came upon me out of nowhere, silently. Before I even had time to react, they grabbed hold of me and shined a bright light in my face, blinding me in the darkness. They started beating me. Over and over. When they stopped, just for a moment, I struck. I threw a punch forcefully upward, sending the broken nose of one of the attackers into their brain. I could see dark blobs of movement just enough too mediocrely predict their movements. I pulled a hunting knife from under my old, raggedy shirt and plunged it into the throat of one of the unarmed men. The gargling of blood and sound of suffocation filled my ears, giving me confirmation that said attacker had been dealt with.

The bright light shined in my face again, sending pangs of discomfort through my head and eyes. While disoriented, I was grabbed in a bear hug from the front. I couldn't move my arms, and I couldn't escape. This person was larger than me, and I couldn't overpower them. I heard a raspy voice making noise that sounded like laughter, but more closely represented the sound of a cackling child. The sound of a knife being unsheathed echoed, and I decided it was time to do something. I looked at the person holding me, and in clear view, their neck was outstretched, simply asking to be taken advantage of…

I opened my mouth and bit.

I lingered for only a moment and then ripped away a large chunk of flesh. The hold on me loosened and soon became nonexistent. The raspy voice soon replaced its incessant laughter with that of a coward's plea of forgiveness. I heard the knife drop and the person shuffle their feet, fall to the ground and backup against a creaking structure. I stood above them for several seconds. Hearing them beg for mercy. When my eyes finally adjusted, I looked into the orbs of the skinny, mangy looking man in front of me. Old and weak. I knelt down, picked up his knife, and walked closer towards him. He started screaming. Crying for help that would never come.

When I ceased his outcries of agony, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my left arm. Blood stained the torn flannel shirt. I sat down next to the old man's writhing body, a large knife still protruding from his neck, and looked ahead. Not paying any attention to the commotion beside me. It was early morning, the sun had not even begun to rise. I sat there for several hours, not thinking, and then thinking, then not thinking. Rinse and repeat.

After the sun had crept up behind the field and brought me out of my trance, I stood and began rummaging through the belongings of the dead men. Nothing. Just like the many times before. Maybe that was why they were attacking people on the roads. They had nothing, but they figured someone had to have something. So they would take it. I used to call them hunters. Now I call them survivors. The same as I call myself. Anyone I met on the roads I either avoided or killed, out of either self-defense or the necessity of survival. If they had something I needed, I would take it. Simple as that.

I opened the door to the pickup behind me and began searching through it, knowing well I would find something of value. I reached for my hunting knife to cut the cloth from the seats, but found my knife was not there. I looked down and yanked the knife out of the raspy-voiced man's neck, causing him to slump over. The material from the seats, I found, worked wonders as protection from infected. The instinct of most people is to put their arms up in defense. Their attempts would be fruitless as most times they would still get bit. I walked to my pack that had been taken from me, reached inside and pulled out a half-used roll of duct tape. I wrapped the cloth around my forearms and shins and taped the cloth to the upper sleeves of my shirt and my jeans to ensure they would not simply fall off. The snug fit was a sign I had wrapped it properly. I dropped the duct tape back into my pack and slung the pack over my shoulder.

I walked back to the truck and searched it once more, this time under seats, in glove compartments, and on top of visors. In the center console, under a large pile of old envelopes and tissue paper, I found a revolver. The thing was still a shiny silver. That truck must've been sitting there since the outbreak had first started. I popped open the cartridge. Loaded. I reached to the empty holster on my belt, unclipped the leather flap and slid the firearm in place. It had been months since I had even seen a gun. Of course, it had also been months since I had seen another living person, so a gun wasn't really necessary.

Out in the wilderness, it was oddly peaceful. The winter was harsh and nature was sometimes cruel, but the solitariness of it was what attracted me to it. I had been alone for over 2 years, and I liked it that way. An old friend once said, "The only thing a partner is good for, is getting you killed." Or something like that. They were right, though. Without having to worry about anyone else, it made my survival a hell of a lot easier.

However, not having someone around was starting to wear on my psyche. With no one to talk to, I resorted to talking to myself, telling stories about how things used to be and the events of that day's hunt. Without any means of upkeep, I grew rather haggard-looking, as well. When I closed the rusty door with a loud creak, I caught a glimpse of myself in the dusty old window for the first time in a long time. My now mostly gray hair was nearly touching my shoulders and hanging in my eyes. My beard, drooping just below my neck, was stained with blood and dirt. Spots of dried blood speckled across my face in random placement, and wrinkles were much more prominent. I was getting old, and oddly looked forward to one day not having to fight anymore.

I turned away from my reflection and continued on down that long empty road.

I looked down as I walked, no real destination, no real purpose for walking. Just walking. My gaze fell upon my old boots. The toe of the shoe had curled upward from the extensive use, and the heel of the soles were starting to come off, hanging lower than the rest of my boot. My jeans were torn and bloodied. Patches of duct tape were scattered all over the article of clothing, barely holding it together.

I lifted my hands. My nine fingers were covered in crusty blood, and dirt packed itself under my finger nails. I had lost one of my middle fingers in a confrontation similar to the one I had only hours before. A small group ambushed me. I struggled, so they cut off my finger with an old pocket knife. Unfortunately for them, I didn't stop fighting and threw the excess blood into the eyes of their pack leader while launching my head backwards and into the nose of the survivor restraining me. Obviously, I made it out, and they didn't.

I lifted my head back to the road and stopped in my tracks. An old park ranger station stood on the side of the road, overrun with green plants and overgrowth. I contemplated my next move and quickly ran into the woods to the right side of the road. I made a wide loop around the building, scoping the place out, before coming back to it. It stood on red brick and broken glass. I peered into one of the windows and saw the typical look of a makeshift shelter. Old mattresses were placed sporadically throughout the one large room, with a small fire pit and pot in the middle. The place was empty, which I saw as either an opportunity or a trap. My gut told me to trust the latter assumption, but my empty stomach told me to take the chance.

I opened the unlocked door to the station and tentatively stepped inside, scanning the room. I held my gun out in front of me with my knife crossed just under it. Nothing. The place was empty. I closed the door behind me, propped an old metal chair against the door, and holstered my gun while still keeping hold of the knife. Old duffle bags lied slumping on the floor at the head of each mattress. Broken lamps and blank-covered books lied next to the mattresses, as well. I didn't have to read them to know what they said. They all documented the "game" that the owners had caught. The number of shoes one person had, to the quality of the shirt another was wearing. Old cubicle walls laid on the ground in heaps. Some were used to board up the windows, while others were used to create the fire pit. The ceiling boasted large moldy holes where water damage had settled in. What a great place to set up camp.

I checked every drawer of every old desk, every trashcan, every duffle bag, but found only the most miniscule of items. Some had half-eaten cans of rotten baked beans, while some had broken pocket knives. Some even had pictures of what I assumed were loved ones. I recognized some of the men in these pictures. They were the ones I killed earlier. The pictures portrayed them like ordinary people, but their actions spoke differently. I stood up to leave the station empty-handed, when I stepped on a small rug. The creaking sound originating from under it intrigued me. I shifted my weight on one foot and found that the floor felt slightly loose. I grabbed a corner of the rug and unveiled a small cellar door with a lock binding the two doors together. I took out my knife and jammed it between the door and rusty lock. After several seconds of pushing, the lock gave way, causing me to lose my balance and fall over. I sat back up and lifted the doors.

The doors landed on either side of the open hole with a loud thud. I peered into the darkness of the cellar, pondering what I would possibly find down there. I stood up, walked back outside and checked the perimeter of the station, making doubly sure that what I was stumbling into wouldn't be some sort of horrific trap. When I determined that the outside was clear, I ventured back into the building and started down into the cellar. The familiar rumble of a generator reverberated up the stairs of the hidden room. That meant power. The familiar smell of decay filled my nose, as well. I continued to walk down the stairs with my hand firmly sliding up and down the wall, looking for a source of power, when I eventually found it. I flipped the switch up and artificial light lit up the small room the stairs ended on. Just as I had thought, the cellar would not hold anything I would want to see.

Inside the room were cages. The kinds of cages one would see at an old dog shelter. The cages, however, weren't the important things to note. What was held inside the cages _was_ something worth noting, however. Inside, held the dead and still decaying bodies of men, women, and children. Many bodies were lying bloated and stiff, some on top of one another. The smell hit me all at once and caused me to throw up. That smell being contained down here for so long was too much, even for me. Blood puddled in certain places and bile and bodily fluids ran freely from the corpses that piled inside the cages. It was a horrible sight.

I turned my gaze to focus on the small wooden table that supported a tiny container. I walked over and popped the lid off. Inside were more photos, but not the photos of happy people like the ones I had found upstairs. Instead, these photos were taken of people at a distance. Some were of people walking on the road, like I had been, and some depicted people in the woods. I turned to look upon the dead once more. I recognized the people in the photos as the ones lying dead in the cages. I felt my stomach tighten when I flipped through another photo and saw a semi-familiar face.

Me.

My photo depicted me sitting at a small fire in the middle of the day, eating a small container of baby food. I dropped that photo to the ground to see another one of me. This time, I was crawling into a hole in a tree that I thought was safely out of the prying eyes of both infected and normal people alike. Every photo had a date written on the back. Mine was 3 days before I was attacked. I felt my breathe begin to catch as the last photo of the entire stack became visible. The photo showed a healthy size group of people walking down the road, around 8 of them. Military looking, all sporting assault rifles and a familiar insignia on the arm. Both men and women mixed into the group. But two familiar faces caught my eye, and caused me to drop my knife. I fell to my knees and felt the urge to scream. I opened my mouth to speak for the first time in what felt like forever. In a hoarse and dry tone, one word escaped my lips:

"Ellie?"

**AN: Well, I haven't done one of these in a while. I appreciate you guys still reading and seemingly enjoying these chapters! If you have any feedback you'd like to give me, or anything that bothers you in the story so far, message me or write a review and I'll be more than happy to either message you back or mention your concerns in the next authors note. For those of you possibly wondering about the ending in the last chapter, don't worry. It will be addressed soon enough. I am having a ton of fun writing these and I hope you enjoy reading them. Anyway, I should have the next chapter up in a week. Maybe before depending on if I get enough time. Thanks!**


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Memories

_I awoke in darkness. Lying on my side, I could feel something slimy and wet drip onto my face. I sat up quickly, wildly looking around, but nothing could be seen in the black. I lifted my hand directly in front of my face, but couldn't see a thing. Cold stone met my hands as I tried to push myself into a standing position. I wasn't able to fully stand, but I could crouch. I raised my hands to feel out what type of confinement I was in. As the minutes passed, agonizingly slow, I grew more and more anxious. I wanted to know where I was, why I was here, and who brought me. Just as my mind began to wonder, a blinding light illuminated the space I occupied and revealed itself to me. _

_ I heard the patter of boots as they made contact with the floor. I pressed my face to the door of the small cage I was currently being held. I saw a man. I winced as I looked upon his ghastly visage. Most of his face looked to have been melted by fire, his clouded right eye wandered while his left eye focused straight ahead, and the tight white t-shirt he wore showed his many tattoos covering his arms. I looked at him and saw the product of the new world. As he walked, he rubbed his arms in an erratic manner, twitching incessantly. He looked like an insane drug addict. _

_ The small hallway he walked down seemed to hold more than just me. As the man passed certain cages, he would feign a jump towards them, or kick the bars, which would earn a slight whimper from whatever denizen currently occupied them. Sometimes he would spit at them, or squat down in front of them, stare for a few seconds, and let out a blood-curdling scream. Even the two armed men walking behind him seemed overly nervous. He was insane. When he stopped in front of my small prison, he only solidified my observations._

_ "So…" he started, "You must be Joel." My stomach clenched. His knowing my name only meant one thing. Seemingly reading my mind, he lifted up his hand and showed me his palm. Tattooed in dark red ink was a Firefly symbol. Why was this psychopath working for the Fireflies?_

_ "We know what you did, Joel. There's no use in trying to deny it." He spoke with unnecessary quickness, making it hard for me to catch every word. As he spoke, his bad eye would twitch toward me and then back to its resting position. He slammed his hand on the bars of the cage, earning a startled jump from me. _

_ "__**DON'T! EVER! LOOK! AT! MY! EYE!" **__he yelled, placing a large deal of emphasis on each word. I shivered. This man terrified me. He not only looked like a monster, he sounded like one, too. He took a few deep breathes. _

_ "I'm so sorry," he sighed. "I'm just really sensitive about it, you know? Had it since I was a baby. Now, where are my manners? My name is Randall." He stuck is hand through the bars. I hesitated but reached out in fear that he would yell or worse if I didn't. When I took his hand in mine, he smiled, shifted his hand to grip my thumb, and flicked his hand to the side. I yelled out in pain. The bastard broke my thumb. He leaned in closer to the cage. "We are not friends, Joel. Maybe we would have been, had you not __**KILLED MY FRIENDS!**__" he spat. He dropped his head and took several more deep breathes. "We are going to hurt you, badly. And by we I mean me, of course." He laughed like a giggling school girl. "I'm not going to just kill you. I'm going to make an art form out of you." He stood up and looked down. "I'd get some rest if I were you. Because in a few hours, you'll be all mine." _

I flipped the photo over to see the date. Winter. It was already spring. This photo had been taken weeks ago, at least. Snow was falling in the picture, and it hadn't snowed in a month. They were long gone. I whipped around to look into the cages. I scanned them, but none of the rotted faces matched with those in the pictures. I breathed a sigh of relief. Those survivors must not have gotten to _her _group.

I turned to sit down against the small table and look at the picture. It was definitely Ellie, and she was definitely with the Fireflies. No doubt. Even though she was with them, I wasn't angry. I was actually glad that she was "safe." I use that term loosely. The Fireflies have never been safe, but they were safer than most.

I studied her for a while. She had cut her hair a little shorter, still long enough to be put in a ponytail, though. She was taller, more womanly. The picture was a little grainy and worn looking so I couldn't exactly make out every detail of her, but that didn't stop me from trying. I stared until my eyes began to water, and then decided it was time to go. I folded the picture and put it in my pocket.

I flipped the switch off when I got to the top of the stairs and closed the doors when I exited. I stopped in the middle of the station floor and just stood. Thinking about everything that had happened between _then _and now. I imagined scenarios in my head. The Fireflies were probably still looking for me, which was why they were here. I liked to imagine _she_ was looking for me. But I knew better than that. She told me she didn't want anything to do with me ever again. I shook my head to disperse the thoughts and continue moving. They opened to many wounds that, even after all this time, were still fresh.

I stared at the picture for so long, I lost track of time. The sun had already started going down. It was still high in the sky, but starting to sink. I needed to continue down the road. I didn't know what I'd find, but I had to keep moving.

I walked for days. Barely stopping to rest. All I could think about was what I had found in that ranger station. How was she doing? Did the Fireflies know it was her? The immune girl. Why did she join them? So many questions flooded my mind. I don't know what motivated me to keep moving, but I did anyway.

I never came across anyone else on that road. It was oddly empty, and it made me feel like the last person on earth. Open blisters on my feet seeped blood, and my old bones ached. I was feeling my age. How many years had it been since the incident at Tommy's? Three? Five? Ten? I lost count. Even back then I was considered an old man, especially in these times.

Eventually I came across a less than extravagant sign that read "Welcome to Montana" in chipped, dark blue letters. A star showing North, South, East, and West was painted on the sign, with a red circle enclosing the "N." If I kept walking this way, I'd end up in Canada. I started wondering what kind of shape the other parts of the world were in. Japan. Europe. Australia. Maybe they were able to get back on their feet. Probably not, though. If they had, they would have made contact with us somehow.

I had walked several miles passed the state line sign when I noticed a dirt path leading off into the woods from the road. Fresh tire tracks were imbedded into the soil. Tire tracks meant people, and people meant resources. If they were a small enough group, I could take what I needed and leave. If not, I would just have to move on. I followed the path for around half an hour, not convinced that it led to anywhere. Small trees lied in the middle of the path. Rocks, half-buried in the ground and 20 year old trash littered the path. To the normal eye, it would seem like I was heading into a dead end. But for me, I realized that the tree was most likely some sort of camouflage. The purpose being to repel anyone from coming down this way. At least in vehicles.

I walked until I heard voices. Then I stopped and listened. The sound of a diesel truck starting up and heading towards me gave me motivation to move. I ran into the woods and lied flat behind a thick tree. Soon, a military-style truck drove down the path, heading back out to the road. Inside, over the engine, I could hear what sounded like people talking. Yelling in jovial fashion. These guys were most likely military, but once again, my hunger won over instinct. I continued through the woods. Moving slowly and deliberately, making sure not to make too much noise that would disturb nature and alert it to my presence.

I learned while living in the wilderness for two years that blending in with nature was the best camouflage. The military and other survivors would blaze through the woods like a wildfire, making as much noise as possible, alerting everyone and everything to their presence. I wanted to make sure that the birds kept singing and the squirrels kept barking. They made everything seem right. It's easy for anyone to feel that something's wrong when those things aren't happening in the woods. When the wildlife doesn't know you're there, the threat doesn't either.

I soon came upon a clearing about 30 yards in diameter. Tents littered the small, makeshift field, and smoke floated up above campfires that were recently extinguished. The entire camp had to have left in that truck. I lied flat on my stomach for a while, just watching the camp. If anyone else was there, I wanted to make sure I got the drop on them, and not them on me. After several minutes, I stood. The overwhelming hunger, again, forcing me into a dangerous situation. I took out my pistol and knife, one hand crossed under the other. I walked to every tent and peeked inside. Nothing. The entire place was empty. Without knowing how much longer I would be alone, I started going through every duffle bag I could find. And lucky enough for me, I had hit the jackpot. Canned beans, baby food, bottles of water, pouched fruit, candy. I stuffed as much as I could into my pack without it weighing me down. Every couple of bags I dug through, I would find personal belongings such as photo's, dirty magazines, cigarettes, and journals. One journal in particular caught my eye.

It was black, old and faded. It sat on top of one of the bags inside a single-man tent. I walked to the bag, picked up the book, and opened it.

_**June 20, 2012**_

_**Jeremy waited for the bus with me today. He's so cute and I think I like him. Maybe he wants to take me to prom? I have to talk to Jessica and Ashley about this first thing tomorrow!**_

_**June 24, 2012**_

_**Jeremy asked me on a dinner date! I'm so excited! Mom took me to the mall earlier today to find a pretty skirt to wear. Daniel told me that Jeremy's favorite color is purple, so I bought a purple skirt. The only problem is, I don't have any shirts to go with my new skirt! Plus, Jeremy mentioned maybe catching a movie before supper. I thought it was weird but he said, "If we see the movie before we go to supper, we'll have something to talk about afterwards." I guess that makes sense. Whatever, I'm really happy either way! Jessica said he's going to ask me to prom tonight. I'll just have to wait and see.**_

For some reason, those first entries reminded me of something. I started rummaging through the bag to find out if what I was thinking was true. I froze when I finally found what I was looking for.

_No Pun Intended._

"Put your hands where I can f-fuckin' see 'em," a voice rang out behind me. I dropped the book and slowly stood up. "Turn around." I didn't move. I heard footsteps slowly approaching me. "I said, turn t-the fuck around!" the person said, poking me in the back of the head with something. I quickly spun around, knocked a long rifle out of their hands, threw a punch that landed square in the nose, and started running towards the woods. I had almost made it to the edge of the clearing when the muffled, whip-like sound of a bullet whizzed by my ear. I froze in place.

"If you try to run again, I'll put one in the back of your head. Now I won't say it again. Turn. Around." Reluctantly, I did as I was told. Standing in front of me was a young man, no older than 20, wearing glasses, the lenses slightly cracked and dirty. The rifle he was holding boasted an old world military grade scope, and att the end of the gun, a large suppressor sat menacingly. I felt a mysterious constant feeling of nostalgia that I couldn't quite place my finger on. "Holy shit. It's you." I felt my heart jump. He was a Firefly. I immediately started thinking of ways to kill him. I had my gun in my holster, but he had that rifle trained on me. There was no way I was getting the jump on him.

He continued to stare at me, eyes wide and mouth agape. Almost as if he was astonished that I was still alive after all this time. How he recognized me so quickly felt kind of strange, though. I'd come across Fireflies in the past that hadn't even batted an eye when they saw me. Surely he hadn't studied me to that great of detail that even in my current state he could still see what I used to look like. It was only when he spoke again that I realized I had done something I never thought I would be able to.

"I-It's me, Joel. It's Benny."

I had found her.


End file.
